


Looking Straight At The Sun

by EmmaArthur



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alcohol, Alex&Liz friendship, Because he's temporarily dead, Canon Disabled Character, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, Post-Season/Series 01, but not actually there, max is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-14 19:11:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20605880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaArthur/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: Alex and Liz have a much needed discussion about Max, Michael and childhood memories, and then go on a much needed bender to forget it all. Set post season 1.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Mentions of canon child abuse and canon-typical violence. Alcohol and drinking for part two]
> 
> I love friendships, and I love the friendships on this show especially, so this my tribute to that. It's got more Malex than Echo, but there's some of both. I hope you like it!
> 
> Thank you to eveningspirit for beta-reading and providing all the encouragements I need and more.

It's only when Liz walks toward him that Alex realizes he was hoping to see her here. There was no reason to assume she'd be at the Crashdown, since she spends most of her time at her lab in the hospital trying to find a way to bring Max back, and yet Alex wandered in almost without thinking.

She's wearing her uniform just as comfortably as Alex wears his fatigues, the antennas on her headband springing up and down every time she moves. But she has bags under her eyes larger than the day before their SATs, and there's a slump to her shoulders that makes Alex feel for her deeply.

Max has been in stasis in a pod for nearly three months, now, and they're no closer to reviving him. Alex has tried to stay away from it all, busying himself with tying the loose ends of Project Shepard, but Kyle gives him regular updates on their progress.

“Hi there!” Liz exclaims, with a smile that looks genuine, though it doesn't quite reach her eyes. “I haven't seen you in a while.”

“I was in the mood for a milkshake,” Alex grins up at her.

Liz tilts her head at his non-answer. “Little Green Man?” she asks.

“Sure.”

“Coming right up!”

Alex settles down in the last booth, nodding to Arturo on the way. He doesn't have to wait long before Liz comes back with a milkshake in each hand.

“Here you go,” she says, putting down one of the milkshakes in front of Alex. “I thought I'd take a break with you, if that's okay. You're not waiting for anyone?”

“No, I just didn't want to go straight home from work,” Alex replies.

“I've missed you. You never come to the Wild Pony anymore,” Liz says, sitting across from him.

“I've missed you too,” Alex admits. “I'm just not really in the mood for drinks these days.”

Or for seeing Maria. Or worse, Michael and Maria together. Alex has been avoiding the Wild Pony for months.

“Maria told me,” Liz says quietly. Alex frowns. “About you and Michael. She feels awful about it.”

Alex shrugs. “They're adults. They don't owe me anything.”

“And yet you're avoiding them. Don't think your little disappearing act has gone unnoticed.”

“I've got no reason to be there,” Alex shakes his head. “I'm not an alien. I'm not dating an alien.” He winces when he realizes how that came out. “Sorry, I mean−”

“I know what you mean,” Liz assures him, though a bit coolly.

“My father caused so much of this, I don't even understand how they can still look at me,” Alex sighs. “I can't help bring Max back, so...I'm no use to you.”

“Oh, Alex, I didn't know you felt that way. Of course we need you. You were the one who found out about Caulfield−”

“And rashly stormed it, which resulted in dozen of aliens getting killed−”

“You stood up to your father! Why would we blame you for his faults?”

“My family is in this up to their necks!”

“Yes! And I for one would never by angry with you for wanting to get away from all this. But we're still your friends, Alex. We still care.”

Alex sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Why are we even talking about this?” he asks softly, when his breathing has come back to normal. “You lost Max, and you're clearly working yourself to the ground, and I'm here complaining about...I don't even know what. This isn't what I came for.”

“What did you come for?” Liz asks, tilting her head to the side.

“I told you. Milkshake.”

“Right. You should start drinking it, then.”

Alex blinks and looks down at his milkshake, which he hasn't even touched. He takes a swing and puts it back down.

“How are you really, Liz?” he asks.

Liz sighs. “Tired. It's been a rough...six months. God, I've been back for six months already?”

“I can't believe it either,” Alex says. “You holding up okay?”

“If you'd been around, you'd already know,” Liz shrugs, with as much kindness as resentment in his voice.

Alex feels a pang of guilt. He was the one telling her off, not so long ago, for being a terrible friend to Maria, and now he's doing even worse.

It's just that he can't stand the thought of being in the same room as Maria right now. It's not an excuse to abandon Liz, though.

“I'm sorry,” he says, offering Liz his hand, palm up. She takes it with the desperation of someone who really needs friends on her side.

“It hasn't been easy,” she says. “Max is...we don't know if we can bring him back, let alone when. Michael and Isobel are alternating between hyperfixation and self-destruction. Maria still doesn't know anything and thinks he took a job in Santa Fe, so I can't really talk to her. Rosa's miraculously alive, but it's hard to feel grateful when it came at such a price and she's...well, she's still nineteen, and she's terrified of aliens now, so I'm the one comforting her more days than not. Kyle's been trying to hold us all together, but−”

Kyle's been trying to hold _Alex_ back together too, and Alex suddenly wonders how much his friend has been taking on his shoulders.

“I've been the worst friend ever,” he says.

“You have your own problems to deal with.”

Alex thinks of his father, still in a coma in the hospital. Of Project Shepard, and praying every day that he's _not_ going to find another facility that's been holding aliens prisoners for seventy years. He very much _doesn't_ think of Michael and Maria together.

“Yeah, but that's not an excuse to hide away.”

“I think I would have, too,” Liz says, and Alex is swept away, not for the first time, by her pure, untainted kindness. This is the girl who once held out her hand to the boy sitting alone in a corner and never took it back.

“I must have forgotten how much I love you,” Alex says.

Liz gives him her first real smile since he came through the door. “Then I need to remind you. We haven't really spent much time together since I came back, beside that day with Mimi.”

“That's true,” Alex nods. “And the ten years before that were a _long _time. I want to know everything you've been up to.”

“Well, you know, lots of studying, getting a PhD, nothing terribly exciting.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Alex mutters. “I feel like I've had enough excitement for a lifetime.”

“You know, that night when I drove through Roswell and Max pulled me over, I was thinking that my life was a bit dull. But now I'm starting to regret even entertaining that idea.”

Alex snorts. “I bet. There's such a thing as too much at once.”

“Tell me about it,” Liz laughs. “Isn't it funny, that you, me and Kyle ended up coming back here within months of each other, just in time for the high school reunion?”

“Yeah,” Alex smiles. “Who'd have thought that? That we would all be here together ten years later? When I came back, I thought everyone would be gone.”

“Why _did_ you come back? I can't imagine it was to see your family.”

Alex laughs, a little bitterly. “Not really, no. But...my father wanted me to transfer here and...I wasn't really thrilled at first, but I already had a place to stay at, and it seemed easier than navigating a whole new city. At least I knew what to expect here. Or I thought I did.”

“What, you mean the whole alien thing threw you off? A seasoned soldier like you?”

Alex blinks, realizing that this somehow isn't what he was thinking about. Sure, finding out his old classmates−his old boyfriend−were aliens was quite the shock, but when it comes to the roller-coaster of these last few months, his mind goes straight to Michael. Michael and their on-off relationship, Michael and Maria, now, Michael the most _human_ person he knows.

“Nah,” he drawls. “I've seen worse government conspiracies. This is barely a glitch in my radar. And I'm an airman, not a soldier.”

Liz laughs.  “ It makes me feel awful some days, you know,”  she says,  sobering up . “I mean, me and Kyle, we were maybe the only ones who got to do what we wanted. Rosa's death derailed  me for a bit, but I still got my PhD. But Max wanted to  take a road trip and be a writer, and Michael got a scholarship, didn't he? And you wanted to make music. Even Maria, she didn't want to go to college but I'm sure she didn't see herself still at the bar after ten years. I remember how hopeful we all were like it was yesterday. What happened to us? Was it all because of Rosa's death?”

“Mine had nothing to with it,” Alex shrugs.

“Then what?”

“Michael and I...my father caught us, the same day that Rosa died.”

“Oh,” Liz winces. “That can't have gone well.”

Alex hesitates. He's never told anyone what happened that day, and he doesn't know who Michael has told. Max, probably, since he healed his hand, but only recently. And Max is dead now, or close enough.

But they're all tired of secrets.

“You remember that Michael broke his hand?” he asks.

“Yes,” Liz frowns. “That's how I figured out the hand on Rosa's face was Isobel's. Do you mean that your father−”

“With a hammer,” Alex nods somberly.

“Well, fuck,” Liz covers her mouth with her hand. “I mean, I knew he was abusive, but−”

“He tried to kill Kyle, before he put him to sleep. And he's probably have gone for me if he'd succeeded.”

“Is it wrong that him killing to protect his secrets doesn't seem as horrible as maiming a seventeen-year-old's hand because he caught him making out with his son?”

_We were doing a little more than making out_ is the first answer that comes to Alex's mind. But Liz doesn't need that level of detail, and it brings up memories Alex would rather stay put.  And it's really not the point.

“I'm a lot less scared of him now than I was back then,” he shrugs. “I could−I did−outfight him. I think that's why he went after Kyle first. I'm not worried for my life.”

“And he's in a coma, anyway.”

“Yeah. We won't be able to keep him that way forever, though. We'll have to figure something out. Kyle has to dose him regularly, and the hospital staff is bound to start getting suspicious soon.”

Liz bites her lip. “I want to help, but−”

“You have far too much on your plate,” Alex finishes for her. “This is my problem, and I'll sort it out.”

Liz nods. “I don't think I could take that on, too. But I can do something else.”

“What is that?”

“You need someone to talk to about Michael.”

Alex opens his mouth in surprise. “I do?”

“It's written on your face, Alex. You're hurting. I can't solve anything for you, but I've been told my shoulder is very comfortable to cry on.”

“Okay,” Alex says slowly. “But only if you talk to me about Max.”

“I don't know if I can,” Liz murmurs, her eyes filling with tears.

“It might do you good, too. Get it off your chest.”

Liz nods. “I can try,” she says. “We should get out of here though, unless you want me to be a weeping mess in public. I don't think Dad really needs me tonight, we could go upstairs.”

“If you want,” Alex says. “Or I could take you to my cabin. You've never been there, have you? It's really quit comfy, and we can have a sleepover like old times.”

This wasn't at all Alex's plans for tonight, but his plans included pulling an all-nighter at the bunker, if only to avoid lying awake on his bed for hours. Being with Liz should keep the nightmares at bay, too, which is just an added bonus.

“Sounds nice,” Liz says. “Let me just tell Dad and run upstairs to change, and I'm all yours.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think? Part two will be up sometime in the next week, whenever I find the time to post.


	2. Chapter 2

“How did you get this cabin?” Liz asks once they're both settled around the low table with a beer. They didn't talk much on the way over, each lost in their thoughts, but Alex is grateful that silence with Liz is still as comfortable as it used to be.

“Jim Valenti left it for me,” Alex answers.

“Wow. I remember you and Kyle were friends when we were kids, but−”

Alex bites his lip. “Jim was...I didn't understand back then, but he was stuck. He didn't approve what my father was doing, to me, and probably to the aliens at Caulfield too, but my father must have threatened him with something really big.”

“You know he was−” Liz trails off, hesitating.

“Rosa's father? Yes. Kyle found pictures and files here, actually. I think Jim wanted to make up for all of it, when he was dying. So he wrote Kyle some coded notes, and left me this place.”

“It was...nice of him, I guess.”

Alex can hear the hesitation in her voice. “He was no saint,” he says. “I wished for a long time that he's at least reported my father to social services or something, after I enlisted and really started to understand what had been going on there. At least it could have avoided all this mess with Michael. But...he tried to help Rosa, so I guess that's something.”

Liz shakes her head. “It's not enough. My dad thought about doing something often, but he knew that if he went to the police he'd probably get arrested. And Mimi thought no one would believe a black woman about a white Airman abusing his son. I heard them talking about it many times.”

Alex blinks back tears. “I didn't know,” he murmurs. “They always asked me how I was doing, but...I never said anything.”

“They knew. Your father was never very discreet about hating you, and I told tell dad everything you told me.”

Taking a few breaths to steady himself, Alex looks up at her again. “You know when we were kids, I'd look up to Jim Valenti because he was nice to me, and no other adult was,” he says. “But I looked up even more to your dad and Mimi, because they were raising you girls on their own without being bitter jerks. They gave me that. The knowledge that it didn't have to be that way.”

“Oh, Alex,” Liz murmurs, scooting closer to hug him.

She has tears running down her face when they pull apart, and Alex knows those aren't for him. She's probably so exhausted emotionally that this conversation just made the dam break.

But she dries the tears and smiles at him.

“I'm glad we're here,” she says. “I missed you so much while you were overseas. You didn't even send a postcard.”

“Nothing I saw was postcard-worthy,” Alex shrugs. It's not exactly true, he's seen beautiful cities in the Middle East. Not the touristy ones, but some of them were incredible. But they were also war-torn and full of death and sorrow. He knew nothing he could write on the back of a postcard would ever hide that. “And I seem to remember you didn't leave a forwarding address.”

“Good point,” Liz laughs. “Seriously, though, I don't resent you for not writing. All I wanted was to get away from here and never hear of Roswell again.”

“I know the feeling,” Alex says, standing up. “I'm gonna grab another beer, you want one?”

“Sure. I need an evening of not caring. Bring in the booze, Manes.”

Alex laughs. “You're staying over?”

“You drove me here, remember? I'm not making you drive me to town and back in the middle of the night. That is, if it's okay.”

“Of course. You're welcome here anytime, you know that?”

“Thanks,” Liz smiles.

“Technically, there _is_ a guest room,” Alex says a minute later, coming back with two open beers. “But I doubt you'll want to sleep there.”

He hands Liz one of the bottles.

“Why?” she asks.

“Uh, it's kind of a long story. Want me to show you?”

“Show me all your secrets, Alex Manes,” Liz says suggestively. Alex laughs as he makes to move the coffee table to open the trapdoor.

Liz must be so tired that the one beer she's had is enough to make her tipsy, because Alex's explanation of Jim Valenti trying to help Rosa get clean is met with laughter instead of tears.

“What's with men in this town and bunkers? Michael, your father, Jim Valenti?” she asks when they've gotten back up the ladder and Alex is closing the latch on the trapdoor.

Alex looks up at her and raises his eyebrows. “Good question. I hadn't thought about that.”

“You're right, by the way, I'm not sleeping down there.”

“Then I only have the one bed,” Alex says, sitting back down on the couch. “I could sleep on the couch−”

“You don't have to, this is your house. But I can sleep on the couch. Or we could do it like we used to,” Liz says. “You remember? You, me and Maria, sleeping in the same room and going on about boys?”

“I remember,” Alex smiles sadly.

“We were doing it even before we became friends with Maria. But I can see that you miss her, and she misses you.”

Alex sighs. “I can't stand to look at her right now, Liz.”

“Don't get me wrong, I understand heartbreak, but...is it because you resent her for hooking up with Michael, or because you don't want to face the fact that he chose her?”

Alex opens his mouth, and closes it again. “Both,” he mutters, defeated. “I don't know, it's a lot of things. She knows how I feel about him, but she still… She told me it wouldn't happen again. And then−”

“So you do resent her.”

“I don't want to. I know you can't control who you fall in love with. I mean, I really do. But it's like...Michael didn't just turn his back on me, he went to one of my best friends. I know I've hurt him, but it feels like a betrayal.”

“I can see how it would,” Liz says. “But you and Michael...you were never truly together, were you? Long term?”

“We shared, like, a week in high school,” Alex sighs. Maria and Michael have been together longer than they ever were, he realizes suddenly, and it claws at his heart a little more. “Then I left. And since then I've been walking away again and again. I _know_ I can't really blame him for deciding that he's tired of waiting.”

“You're still allowed to feel hurt.”

“It's like...we can't figure out how to be adults in this relationship, and we just fuck up like teenagers over and over.”

“Alex, you were never shown what to do!” Liz exclaims. “I don't think Michael ever had a parental figure in his life, and you were made to think that your sexuality was deviant, that you weren't allowed to _live _it. Not to mention that you really never had a parent that was worth anything either.”

Alex thinks about it for a while, staring  at  his knees . Is that really why he and Michael keep misunderstanding each other? Sometimes it feels like there's some kind of higher cause, a fault in their stars somewhere, a−a  _cosmic_ reason, why they can't be happy together. Is it because they're too different?

“Do you ever wonder if maybe humans aren't meant to be with aliens?” he asks without thinking. He realizes belatedly how rude that could be to Liz, in her current state of mind.

“Every day,” Liz answers simply.

Alex bites his lip. They stay silent for a while, sipping their beers, occasionally glancing at each other, until the sadness and the pain become unbearable and Alex needs to _move._

“Come on,” he says, standing up. “What do you say about PJs and booze?”

“Like Netflix and chill but for heartbroken friends?” Liz asks. “I'm in.”

“Get ready for bed, I'll bring out the good stuff.”

Liz disappears into the bathroom with the overnight bag she brought and Alex heads to the kitchen. He has a bottle of good bourbon somewhere. He thought he was saving it for a happier occasion, but maybe good booze is meant for the sad ones.

He takes the bottle and a couple of shot glasses, plus a pack of beers, to the bedroom and starts working on getting his prosthetic off.

“You promised to tell me about Max,” he says, when they're both in nightwear and lying side by side on the bed. He's tired of hashing out his own issues, he decides. It's his turn to listen.

So Liz tells him. About coming back to Roswell, pretty much by mistake, to get shot and find out in the same breath that her ex is an alien, and that he's been in love with her for ten years. About trying so hard to run away, and finding that she simply can't seem to. About thinking that Max killed her sister, and finding out that Isobel did. Then that Isobel didn't, after all. About the confusion and the fear and the _love_ growing inside her, like something she can't escape.

Alex closes his eyes, and sees the first time he almost kissed Michael. Hears his scream as Alex's father broke his hand.

He could never escape either. He literally went to the other side of the world and came back with just as much love and pain as he felt that day. Just a little less flesh and a little more trauma.

“They're like magnets,” he says. “Suns we orbit around.”

“Does that make us planets?” Liz asks, amused in the way you can only be when the whole world is tilting around you. She pours them another shot each.

“Yeah,” Alex smiles. “But looking straight at the sun burns your eyes. Maybe they're our downfall, too.”

“You get poetic when you're drunk,” Liz giggles.

Then Liz, her voice slurring slightly, tells him about seeing Rosa alive again, the surprise, the exhilaration, the fear. The soul-gripping fear, of finding Max _dead_ on the floor of the cave. The pain, the months without him. The hopes crushed a little more every day another serum fails, or Michael and Isobel don't make progress on their powers.

Alex listens, as Liz talks and rests her head on his arm. He may have lost Michael's love, Michael's presence, but at least Michael is safe. Safe from his father, safe from _Alex_ who always seems to drag trouble with him everywhere he goes. He's carried his broken heart to the Middle East and back, three times, and he can carry it for the rest of his life, if it means that Michael is happy and safe. His petty anger at him and Maria won't last, he knows.

He can't imagine losing Michael for real. He almost did, in Caulfield, and he never wants to go through that again.

His arm feels wet, and he realizes Liz in crying. Alex is close to tears, too.

“I'll help you get him back,” he murmurs. “I don't know if I can do anything, but I'm good at searching.”

“Thanks,” Liz murmurs.

Four shots later, Alex doesn't think he could walk if he had two legs.

“You really think getting drunk together is a good idea?” he asks.

“It won't solve our problems, that's for sure,” Liz shrugs. She's stopped crying, as the alcohol started cheering her up. She's never been a sad drunk.

Alex is, sometimes, but not today. He'll worry about the new weight on his chest, his decision to let Michael go for real, in the morning. For now he wants to enjoy this.

“At this point, I don't know that anything will,” he slurs.

“I don't think it can make them worse, either.”

“Nah. We're good.”

They don't fall asleep for another two shots, but they use that time wisely by untangling their limbs and giggling when they can't seem to figure out which leg is whose.

“I'm pretty sure I've only got one,” Alex says.

“Oops, I think that one's mine,” Liz giggles. “No, not that one. It's got hair.”

“We're a mess,” Alex fake-sighs.

Liz looks up at him from trying to move a leg that definitely isn't hers, since it doesn't end with a foot, and she bursts in laughter.

And then in tears.

Alex joins her.

Alex drives Liz back home in the morning, once they've ingested enough coffee and aspirin to face the outside world. Though Alex would have just as well stayed hidden in his cabin forever.

“I'm letting him go,” he relays his decision from last night in the car.

“Michael?”

“Yes. He's entitled to choose Maria, and I have no right to mess up the one good thing in his life. I've hurt him enough.”

“He's hurt you too,” Liz states.

“I'm not denying that, but it's time to move on,” Alex says.

He doesn't look at her, because he knows she'd be able to see right through him. Thankfully, he has the excuse of needing to focus on the road, which the splitting headache is not helping..

“Can you?” Liz asks.

“We'll see. I'll keep my promise, though, I'll help you get Max back. Where to?”

“My lab. Kyle will be by later, once his shift is over. Isobel was supposed to come too.”

But Isobel isn't the one they find when Liz unlocks the door of the lab for them. It's Michael. And he's sitting in the middle of a circle of plastic cages, each containing a squeaking, energetic mouse with a shimmering handprint on its body.

He looks up at them, his eyes bloodshot. His mouth opens in surprise when he sees Alex, but he just nods at him.

“Hey, I was up working all night,” he says. “I think I had a power breakthrough.”

“Weren't you with Maria?” Liz asks.

Michael shakes his head. “We broke up,” he says, firmly looking at Liz and not at Alex. But his quick glance tells Alex that he was absolutely meant to hear that.

He and Liz exchange a glance that's more loaded than an entire conversation.

“These mice were all injured in some way five hours ago,” Michael says, following his own train of thoughts.

“You healed them?” Liz asks, the hope in her voice almost painful.

“Yeah,” Michael nods, standing up.

Or trying to. As soon as he manages to get on his feet, he sways and nearly falls back down. Alex takes a step forward to catch him.

“Thanks,” Michael smiles up at him, tired and elated. “Hey,” he adds.

“Hey back,” Alex murmurs, shutting down the part of his brain screaming that he shouldn't inflict this on himself.

He waits until Michael is more sure-footed to step back, but Michael doesn't let him go.

“I did it, you see?” Michael drawls. “We're gonna bring Max back.”

“I see,” Alex answers. Truth be told, they probably have a way to go still before it's even possible, but he can let Liz and Michael have the hope they dearly need right now.

“We're gonna bring Max back,” Liz repeats under her breath.

Alex catches her eyes. “Things are looking up,” he murmurs to her.

“He is, too,” she murmurs back, nodding at Michael, who is still staring up at Alex, an angelic smile on his face, completely exhausted. “But don't get burned again.”

“You too,” Alex says. He knows neither of them will heed that warning. His resolution to let Michael go is melting under the light of Michael's sun, now that they're in the same room again.

Michael doesn't help by stumbling again and ending up fully in Alex's arms. So if Alex holds on a bit tighter than he really should, who can blame him?

And if Michael hugs him back, burying his tired face in Alex's shirt, who can stop him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this second chapter! I couldn't leave them brooding, I had to give them a hopeful ending.
> 
> Thank you for the love on the first chapter. I'm always up for chatting here and on [Tumblr](https://theemmaarthur.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
